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A 2011 calendar?

A German media outlet is reporting that it has a calendar for Formula 1 in 2011. It is not clear where the dates were sourced. There are 20 races and most of them make sense. The new race in India needs to have a two week gap and so it is not twinned with other races, making it necessary to go backwards and forwards to Asia three times – which is expensive and fatiguing for those involved., but the good news is that China and Korea will be twinned at the start of the year. For the record the published dates are as follows: March 13, Bahrain; March 27, Australia; April 3, Malaysia; April 17, China; April 24, Korea; May 15, Spain; May 29, Monaco; June 12, Canada; June 26, Turkey; July 10, Britain; July 24, Germany; July 31, Hungary; August 21, Belgium; August 28, Europe (Valencia); September 11, Italy; September 25, Singapore; October 9, India; October 23 Japan; October 30, Brazil; November 13, Abu Dhabi.

The other points of interest are that Japan and Brazil are back to back, rather than this year’s Brazil-Abu Dhabi double-header, and that Turkey is after Canada. This means that the Istanbul event can be dropped in 2012 and the United States slotted in to that date if the track is ready. Having said that, Texas at the end of June would be extremely hot and it might be wiser to move the race to the end of the year.

In a perfect world, there would be something like an Austin-Mexico double-header in the autumn and a Canada-New York event in June that would be cost-effective in terms of travel and would increase F1’s footprint in the Americas to five races.

Not much could get me to Texas in June (I lived in Savannah, Georgia which is practically a rainforest in the summer), but a fall race would be perfect. Being a Midwesterner, New York in July wouldn’t be bad at all, and if you tie it to a Canada event, it would make Bernie loads more $$. This all assumes for one minute that these NA venues are actually going to come on-line. If at all. *crosses fingers*

I do wish that they would move Melbourne back to the start of the season and stage the race at noon, local time (2am GMT). Real fans will always be happy to get up/stay up for a Grand Prix. We don’t need Bernie buggering around with the starting times, just to pull in an extra handful of casual viewers (few of whom are likely to be around at 6 or 7am on a Sunday anyway).

Bahrain is such a hideously dull, uninspiring track for the opening race. Furthermore, aside from the total absence of any on-track excitement, it lacks that exciting “start-of-season atmosphere” that Melbourne always provided. Likewise, the abysmal Abu Dhabi track is just about the worst possible location for the season finale.

Spa-Valencia-Monza makes no sense — low downforce for Spa, switch to high-downforce five days later for jinking around the harbour in Valencia, and then back to low downforce for Monza…

Ah well. In a perfect word Portugal would replace Valencia, France would be next to Silverstone, Austria and San Marino would be restored, and the European Grand Prix would be at Brands or Donington. Not going to happen though.

5 fly-away races could make a huge impact on the championship from the get go. 2 months away at the beginning will be a lifetime in the development race. i guess that’s one way to cut costs on development.

I think this is a terrible calendar for European based teams. Many people will be away from home and families for over 6 weeks. If this calendar is accurate then it is yet another example that the money men that run F1 barely behave with a modicum of decency.

Yep, this is Dieter’s calendar from Autosport.com. I spoke to Vicky Chandhok in Hungary and he says the plan is for India to be the penultimate round, ahead of Abu Dhabi. I asked about twinning it with Singapore, but he says they want the maximum available time to finish the track.

They never twin a new race in its first year. Experience shows that they need extra time to get things sorted out with customs and so on. After it has worked once then they start twinning races. Not before. Hence the Korean GP date this year.